I am sure it is very well intentioned, however, it lacks two basic pre-requisites for an informed discussion of racism, a connection to the empirical evidence and an ability to differentiate between the spurious and the relevant.

They could have asked the simpler questions: ‘do Jews face racism in Britain?’ or ‘what type of racism do British Jews encounter?’

Yet, the Channel 4 producers decided to put up essentially a strawman argument, employing the shades of past persecution to diminish the problems faced by Jews in Britain today.

Additionally, the programme and contributions failed to differentiate between what is happening in Britain and the Middle East. It is perfectly possible to concede that many problems exist in the Middle East, without negating the issue of racial attacks on British Jews.

Readers will notice that initially Rev. Sizer does not actually answer the question directly or make any significant attempt to address the issue. Instead we are treated to a small rant about Israel and Zionism, two of Rev. Sizer’s favourite topics.

Readers might understand why Rev. Sizer is reluctant to engage with the actual question or make any significant attempt to talk about racism and how it affects Jews, given his pass misdemeanours in this area.

These racist web sites had one, and only one commonality, they hated Jews, not anyone else.

So it is rather strange to see Rev. Sizer brought forward as having something meaningful to say, when he skirts around the issue and does not acknowledge his own stupidity in this area.

Better questions to ask would have been:

What is the extent of racism faced by British Jews?

What part does Christianity play in animosity towards Jews, historical and contemporary?

Or why do certain “anti-Zionists”, such as Stephen Sizer, Greta Berlin, etc have an unfortunate habit of posting links to racist material?

I would have hoped that Channel 4 could have made an effort to ask some penetrating questions on this important subject, or at least up their intellectual game a bit. Giving people a chance to grind their axes might make for cheap and frivolous TV, but it does not engage with these ethical and moral questions. Instead it confuses the matters and is unsatisfactory.

Overall, this particular programme was a missed opportunity. Channel 4 could have used it to illuminate, to shine alight on the problem of racism in Britain but it chose not to.

Next time, instead of making it an outlet for people’s resentment and personal grudges, the producers should stick to looking at the evidence, thinking about it and asking perceptive questions. That is the serious way to investigate this troubling subject.

“It’s the television channel that has given voice to a thousand anti-western conspiracy theories, while avoiding criticism of the hand that feeds it. Now state-run Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda arm, has forged an unlikely partnership – with the self-proclaimed defender of truth and freedom Julian Assange.

One day after the WikiLeaks founder said he was launching a 10-part series of interviews with “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries”, Russia Today announced it had won exclusive first broadcast rights for the show, titled The World Tomorrow, and was due to begin airing the show in March.

“Our viewers are open to the discussions that will be presented through Julian’s show on our channel,” the channel’s editor-in-chief, Kremlin loyalist Margarita Simonyan, said in a statement.
…

Assange fits Russia Today’s profile of giving airtime to views and experts it says are avoided by the mainstream media. But that strategy has meant giving voice to bloggers and self-proclaimed pundits who come appeared on air to proclaim that Freemasons were behind the revolution in Egypt or that repeated showings of the film Deer Hunter in Stockholm were a sign of Sweden being a US pawn.”

Rev. Stephen Sizer is no novice in terms of racism. Engage 2006: The Church is Moral; The People in the Shadows Are Not My coverage, going back years. The CST on Sizer. Betsy Childs’ excellent The Master of Apologies. Tagged: 9/11, Alibi… Continue reading →

Previously, I have pointed out how the Stop the War Coalition uses material from an active antisemite, Alison Weir (not the historian). Also, they published a poem, which willingly referenced Gordon Duff, the proprietor of a hardcore antsemitic site, Veterans… Continue reading →

This is what passes for comment amongst some ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians’ supporters, taken as a public record: “God Promised Antisemitism to the Zionists My reflections on the Campaign Against Antisemitism survey, by Aaron Dover [Picture] In order to… Continue reading →

My old political sparring partner, Bob from Brockley, has wide intellectual tastes, from anarchism to extraordinary musical endeavours and beyond. But above all he is very charitable. He takes an interest in what ex-Socialist Workers Party members think and say.… Continue reading →

As a matter of public record this is a poem published by the British Stop the War Coalition. Astute readers will notice that it approvingly quotes from a neo-Nazi, Gordon Duff. “JOAN RIVERS died in an endoscopy clinic Where she… Continue reading →

Most literate adults (or at least those with access to the Internet) would probably know to avoid the opinions of David Duke. Duke, ex-Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, convicted fraudster and semiprofessional antisemite is hardly… Continue reading →

Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle East Editor recently stated: @Jinjirrie sorry didn't get to this. BDS is going from the edge of the debate closer to the centre — Jeremy Bowen (@BowenBBC) April 25, 2014 I feel there are many… Continue reading →

The premier antiwar movement in Britain, the Stop the War Coalition, are in a bit of a bind. They owe their existence to campaigning against the invasion of Iraq. They actively campaign on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Yet for… Continue reading →

The level of ambivalence found in the West towards the mass death of Syrian civilians is truly grotesque. In March 2014 it will be the three year anniversary of the conflict, which started with peaceful protests and continues with the… Continue reading →

There is a new report covering the phenomenon of Islamophobia and social media. It comes from the superb Online Hate Prevention Institute and leading scholar in the field, Dr Andre Oboler. “On International Human Rights Day, December 10th 2013, the… Continue reading →